Iran Guardian Council Agrees to 10 Percent Random Recount
(Story Taken from Iran Daily, June 20, 2009)
The Guardian Council said it is ready to recount a random 10 percent of the ballot boxes in last week’s presidential elections.
“Although the Guardian Council is not legally obliged… we are ready to recount 10 percent of the (ballot) boxes randomly in the presence of representatives of the candidates,“ the electoral watchdog’s spokesman, Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei said on Saturday, Press TV reported.
The body, tasked with overseeing the electoral process, has said it received more than 600 complaints of irregularities from the three candidates who lost the highly contested race to replace Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Rezaie in GC Meeting
Kadkhodaei was scheduled to hold a meeting with the three defeated candidates — Mir-Hossein Mousavi, Mohsen Rezaei and Mehdi Karroubi. However, only Rezaei attended.
The defeated conservative aspirant came alone to the highly publicized meeting with the powerful Council to discuss issues and irregularities related to the vote.
Mousavi, the second top vote getter and Karoubi who came in last did not take part in the meeting despite repeated invitations from the GC.
Rezaie, a former commander of the elite Revolutionary Guards attended the extraordinary meeting to voice his complaints about the election and its controversial results.
Mousavi and Karroubi have rejected the June 12 vote as a “fraud“ and demanded fresh elections.
Earlier, the GC spokesman said the body would invite the three former candidates to attend the meeting.
“The presidential candidates will be invited to the meeting to be held early next week to express their ideas and ask questions in the presence of the Guardians,“ Kadkhodaei said Wednesday.
The Guardian Council– Iran’s top legislative body– is tasked with overseeing elections in the Islamic state.
On Monday the body had received complaints from Mousavi and Rezaei concerning the result of the elections.
Only Legal Option
The Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei on Friday said the vote was free and fair and ruled any possibility of fresh elections. He urged the three losers to pursue their complaints “only through legal channels.“
Kadkhodaei also has cautioned the conservative against agitating public opinion over the election results before the Guardian Council investigates the complaints.
Speaking to an ISNA on Friday, the spokesman asked the candidates not to provoke opinion prior to the meeting between the body and the three candidates.
Earlier Rezaei told the state media that he had “won between 3.5 million to 7 million votes, according to the experts that monitored the poll.“
Kadkhodaei explained that the complaints submitted by Rezaei and the request for a re-count in some provinces is under investigation; however, other complaints were simply general ideas that were not under GC jurisdiction to respond. He urged the candidates to wait for the outcome of Saturday’s meeting between the candidates and the Council.
In the 10th presidential elections held on Friday, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared winner with 24.5 million of the 39.1 million votes cast. Mousavi took 13.2 million votes and the other two contenders–Mohsen Rezaei and Mehdi Karroubi–took 1.7 and 0.85 percent of the votes respectively.
After the final results were announced supporters of Mousavi and the other two candidates rejected it and took their protests to the streets.
At least seven people were killed and several others were wounded in shootings that broke out during a protest in Tehran on Monday. State radio said the victims were trying to storm a military barrack to loot weapons and vandalize public property.IranI